Top five New Domain events from 2013: A year in review

Generic term New Domain drama . First, there was drama. In January, the domain world was all abuzz with the possibility of generic-term New Domains, like .BOOK or .CAR, being operated as closed-registry extensions. Amazon and Google were at the head of the controversy, taking flack for introducing the idea of keeping generic New Domains within their own registries, to function as a part of each company's larger business purposes. Now, most New Domains that encompass a generic term will provide services that will at least be partially open to the public. Of course, there was much more drama—string similarity, name collisions, and .AMAZON, for example—but now most of that drama has subsided. The Trademark Clearinghouse launched . And businesses everywhere gained a new option for protecting their registered trademarks and brands. The Trademark Clearinghouse is a database that...